Alastair Cook may have missed out on being named one of Wisden’s cricketers of
the year but there was a sense of consolation when he learned his face would
be the cover image for this year’s almanack.

It is a rare honour and one with which nobody would quibble given his astoundingly successful Ashes series.

Cook has not seen his England team-mates since Jan 9, when his tour ended with him waving them off at the team hotel in Sydney. They boarded a bus for Canberra to start the gruelling one-day leg of the winter while he disappeared home back to life labouring on the farm owned by his girlfriend’s parents.

While a World Cup sapped energy and vitality from his England colleagues, Cook had plenty of time between lambing shifts to reflect on a series that has changed his life. As he approaches the international summer, Cook is now accepted as one of the game’s leading batsmen and indeed may discover over the next couple of weeks that he has been promoted to the captaincy of the one-day team.

Andrew Strauss is mulling over his future as leader in that format of the game and sources have indicated he will go. Others have hinted he will stay. There is nothing Cook can do about the situation other than wait for the call but he insists he will be ready if he is offered the job.

“Yes I do think I would be ready,” he said. “I would have a lot of learning to do as I have only captained a few games in my whole life but I did captain a tour [to Bangladesh last winter] and at the time that was a massive learning curve and we played well.

“The pressure was to win every game in Bangladesh and we did that. You can only be judged on your results and the players did like me as captain.

“There is never an ideal time to take over. I know that. But I like challenging myself and if the opportunity arises in the near future I would like to try it but if selection goes the other way and they choose another captain if Straussy retires then so be it.”

Cook is tiring of all the speculation. He is friends with Strauss and does not want to be seen to be undermining a captain he respects. But at the same time ambition burns brightly in a 26-year-old veteran of 65 Tests.

“Since the World Cup people have been asking me this question,” he said. “At the moment Andrew Strauss is England captain. I don’t crave seeing him giving it up. I would love the opportunity to be captain if it comes off but if it doesn’t come up then so be it.”

Cook is careful with his words to the press so when he said last week that he felt his form had been “wasted” by not being picked for the World Cup, it was almost like a stinging rebuke for the selectors.

He admits the break has “refreshed me” and the “lads looked knackered” at the World Cup, but his status, captaincy ambitions and development partly depend on forcing his way back into the one-day team. He is using Strauss, the man he may replace, as inspiration.

“I would love to get back in that one-day side,” he said. “Over the last few years my one-day game has changed a lot. By not being in England squads I have had a chance to play more one-day cricket for Essex and added things to my game.

“Look at Straussy. His strike rate is great. He has taken his one-day game to another level and that has happened since he got back in as captain. I think I could do it but I also think we can score runs together at the top of the order at a decent rate.”

The 766 runs Cook scored in Australia earned him the Compton-Miller medal as the man of the series but more importantly than accolades, the self-confidence which appeared to have deserted him during a terrible 2010 summer, is back.

“At the end of last winter I had just come back from captaining England in Bangladesh and had scored runs. I felt good but this time it is different,” he said. “To have been part of an Ashes-winning squad and to have contributed a lot of runs has definitely given me a satisfaction and self-belief.

“The biggest thing for me was being man of the series. I have never done that before and in fact only had one or two man-of-the-match awards before in my whole Test career. To be man of the series and get two man of the matches in such an important series, if that doesn’t give you confidence, nothing will.

“Of course it will not be like that all the time. I know that. But to have that on your CV and know you delivered under pressure in tough conditions can only help.”

Does it bring a sense of belonging at the highest level? “Without a shadow of doubt. You always start on nought and all that stuff but there is confidence from what you have achieved.”

We were chatting in the Lord’s Tavern before Essex trained for their championship match against Middlesex, which started yesterday. He was interrupted twice by fans asking for a photograph. That is not a surprise given the location but it is indicative of his new found fame.

Soon after arriving home he was picked out by the television cameras watching the Wales v England Six Nations rugby match at the Millennium Stadium. He would have been there anyway, he says, but without the Ashes the television directors would not have bothered homing in.

Cook was also invited to present a gong at the National Television Awards ceremony at the O₂ Arena but it is clear the celebrity lifestyle does not appeal to him as much as it does to some of his colleagues.

“Things have cropped up that would not have done six months ago and you have to be careful what you do,” he said. “I have been recognised a bit more and that shows the big support we have.

"People who were in England during the Ashes say it took over during the Christmas holiday period. Since coming back I have been surprised by the amount of people who were watching it.”